


drag your heart to the place where it belongs

by sweettasteofbitter



Series: when in the springtime of the year [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweettasteofbitter/pseuds/sweettasteofbitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josephine tries to reassure an exhausted Cassandra that her lack of people skills doesn’t make her any less of a warrior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drag your heart to the place where it belongs

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is pure, unadulterated fluff. Get your toothbrush at the ready.  
> 2\. I personally interpret Josephine as asexual and tried to write her as such, but I think it’s more or less ambiguous in this fic.  
> 3\. Title comes from the song 'Hungry' by Dotan.

At the stroke of midnight, a freshly bathed, dressed down, and dead-tired Cassandra strolled in. She tried to hold her head up high, but she gave up once she had closed the door behind her. Freed from the scrutiny and wagging tongues of outsiders, her shoulders sagged. She sank down on the edge of the bed, and she had only just the clearness of mind to take off her boots before collapsing face-first into the pillow.

Josephine looked up from her book.

“Tired, I presume?”

Cassandra replied with an incomprehensible monosyllable.

“I will take that as a yes,” Josephine teased her. She marked her page and let her novel fall shut in her lap.

It was not uncommon for their roles to be reversed, for Josephine to enter her chambers late in the evening, exhausted from a long day on her feet, and with her work cut out for her for the next. The main difference was that Josephine often returned to an empty room, because the Inquisitor and company often spent weeks on end away from Skyhold.

Cassandra rolled over with heavy limbs, stared up at the ceiling, and let out a frustrated groan. 

“Tell me, _how_ do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“How do you talk to people? Even when they are being insufferable, stubborn, and just make me want to...”

The warrior made a gesture with her hands that left very little to imagination.

“For one, I tend to keep in mind that snapping people’s necks is not a widely accepted diplomatic solution,” Josephine said without missing a beat.

Cassandra snorted. She had notoriously little patience for people that disagreed with her or chose to interrupt her at the wrong time. In a face-to-face conversation Cassandra’s most resilient enemy was often herself, and spending time with people who got onto her nerves wore Cassandra out more than anything. For the sake of the smoothness of an encounter, it was better if the person in question was part of a hostile party on the battlefield. The clashing of metal meant no words had to be spilled, and while confronting highwaymen and apostates exhausted Cassandra too, at least there was satisfaction to be found in strained muscles, a blood stained breastplate, and the knowledge of another enemy defeated.

“I understand that, but does your patience never wear thin? Today a Fereldan Lord tugged at my sleeve for a good twenty minutes before I could shake him off,” Cassandra shifted onto her side and propped her head up on her hand. The sparse light in the room emphasized the dark shadows underneath her eyes, and fatigue colored her cheeks and the tip of her ears a not completely unattractive shade of red.

“I have to admit it can be difficult having to deal with unyielding nobles, but of course it would not benefit a conversation if I displayed my frustration, so I have learned not to express it until the other is out of sight. I would call it ‘delayed annoyance’.”

“You must be excellent at hiding it, then,” Cassandra said with a hint of envy in her voice, “your annoyance, I mean.”

“Perhaps I am hiding it right now,” Josephine smiled. She put her book in the top drawer of her nightstand, extinguished her candle, and lay down.

“What? No, you wouldn’t. Is that – are you making a joke?”

Josephine’s smile broadened. “Yes.”

Cassandra sighed and decided it was better not to waste what little was left of her energy on Josephine’s sense of humor. Instead, she rested her head against the younger woman’s shoulder and curled her arm around her waist.If she noticed how Josephine’s heartbeat sped up as she laid her ear close, she didn’t let on.

In theory, Cassandra was hardly the first person Josephine had ever loved. In practice, however, there was nothing like Cassandra’s simple, affectionate gestures to make Josephine feel like she was still so new at this, still so inexperienced.

But then, much as it had been to Josephine’s surprise, this sense of inexperience was a mutual feeling. Cassandrahad confessed to her some time ago - in a private whisper during a starless night - that Josephine was the first person in a long, long while in which she had allowed her heart to become invested. Perhaps she hadn’t used quite so many words and relied on a plethora of fumbling hand gestures to get her point across instead, but the effect was the same, for Josephine had pulled her close and thanked her quietly, blushingly, for confiding in her. Josephine had kissed her then, and, not for the first time, she had ended up with her fingers carding through the short strands of Cassandra’s hair - much like the way her hands were occupied now.

“Mind you, we all have our individual qualities,” Josephine said reassuringly while she unpinned the braid that haloed the Seeker’s head, “I could not hold up a sword to save my life. I would probably drop it immediately because it is too heavy,” she stretched her arm out into the darkness and laid the pins down on her nightstand.

“Swords are not _that_ heavy,” Cassandra muttered into Josephine’s shoulder.

“Says the woman with years of training and a physical prowess that puts the vast majority of our soldiers to shame.”

“Was that a veiled compliment?”

Josephine chuckled.

“Why, if that was what you consider veiled, I wonder what it would take for you to interpret something as overt praising.”

“Mmm,” was all Cassandra said, and Josephine smiled knowingly when no more words were forthcoming.

“Perhaps you should try to sleep.”

“I don’t think I would have to try. In fact, I’m trying very hard not to fall sleep right now,” Cassandra admitted, to which Josephine promptly kissed her forehead.

“Now _that_ is a veiled compliment.”

Cassandra lifted her head and frowned.Josephine, quick to catch up on her lover’s silence as sign of her tired confusion, decided to be kind enough to provide an explanation and spare Cassandra the temporary humiliation of having to ask for one.

“If you decide to stay awake for me, no matter how much your body is yearning for much-deserved rest, then yes, that could be considered a compliment,” she explained.

Cassandra nodded, then put her head back where it had been.

“That makes sense.”

“Good, I was hoping it would.”

She could feel Cassandra’s lips curl against her shoulder. Both of them stayed silent for a while, and Josephine cherished the warmth of Cassandra’s cheek, her quiet breathing, the feeling of her hair still in between her fingers.

Moments like this she held so dear. Falling in love had made her realize that you weren’t always aware of what you wanted until you held it in your hands, and once you had it, it was only too easy to lose it and to let it slip through your fingers. That’s why, in quiet, lonely moments, Josephine slotted her fingers together called upon the Maker, pacing and praying for Cassandra’s safe return. As surely as dark would turn into dawn, she would continue to wait for the arms around her waist and the sigh of relief against her neck, the silent promise of more safe returns.

Josephine yawned as a sudden wave of fatigue washing over her.

“I think I’m going to heed my own advice,” she said.

“Then so will I,” Cassandra looked at her as fondly as she could muster with her heavy lidded eyes andplanted a soft, lingering kiss on Josephine’s lips.

“Sleep well.”

“Goodnight,” Josephine spoke more or less directly against Cassandra’s mouth, “my lady.”

Another kiss followed, and Josephine made a small, disappointed noise when Cassandra pulled back and rolled over to her own pillow. Josephine sighed. As wonderful as kissing Cassandra was, this was not the time for being greedy. Later, much later, there would be a time where they could allow themselves to be completely selfish.

Josephine settled more comfortably against her pillow and smiled against the darkness of her room - it was at least something to look forward to.


End file.
